The present invention generally relates to steps and, more particularly, to steps for heavy duty motor vehicles, such as industrial trucks, to facilitate the ingress and egress of operators to and from cabs of the trucks.
Conventionally, an industrial truck, such as a semi-truck, is provided with one or more steps to facilitate the ingress and egress of an operator to and from a cab of the truck. During the winter, such steps often become covered with ice, rendering them slippery. In order to provide better traction under such conditions, steps are typically provided with raised grip structures disposed around openings formed in the steps. The grip structures usually have curved side walls defining continuous top rims. While grip structures of this construction will improve the grip of a step, the continuous nature of the top rims can still render the top rims and, thus, the step quite slippery when the step is covered with ice.
In addition to providing grip structures, it has been proposed to run an exhaust pipe under a truck step to prevent snow from accumulating on the step. Such an arrangement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,501,819 to Kloepper. Unfortunately, the arrangement of the Kloepper patent is only effective to melt snow and ice when the engine of the truck is running. Moreover, the arrangement of the Kloepper patent requires the exhaust system of the truck to be specially designed (or re-designed) to route a portion of the exhaust system under the step(s) of the truck. Such routing may not be desirable, or even feasible.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need in the art for an improved anti-slip step for a truck that is specially adapted to reduce slippage under icy conditions. The present invention is directed to such an anti-slip step.